InDesign COM not supported?

[tevert]

Hmm, I thought I'd try using COM to automate InDesign:

Code:

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function str'group str'style
typelib InDesign {531EBB2B-227C-4732-A979-00052EFF35D5} 1.0

InDesign.Application idApp._create

I immediately got the error, "type library error: type kind not supported. ."

Am I out of luck here? or is there another way?

VBA code looks like this:

Code:

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Dim oidApp As New InDesign.Application
Dim oidDoc As InDesign.Document
Set oidDoc = oidApp.ActiveDocument

Thanks!

Tony

[Gintaras]

QM does not support some rarely used things in type libraries. But I never saw such error in >10 years.

Try without a type library.

IDispatch oidApp._create("InDesign.Application")
IDispatch oidDoc=oidApp.ActiveDocument

With IDispatch you will not see the method lists in QM. But converting from VBA is easier.

[tevert]

Hmm good idea. I tried that, and after a very long delay (30 seconds) I get Error (RT) in ChangeParagraphStyle: 0x80080005, Server execution failed.

Code:

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function str'group str'style
IDispatch oidApp._create("InDesign.Application")
IDispatch oidDoc=oidApp.ActiveDocument

[Gintaras]

I'm sorry, must be _getactive, not _create.

Code:

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IDispatch oidApp._getactive("InDesign.Application")
IDispatch oidDoc=oidApp.ActiveDocument

Also, the macro should be running as User, not as admin.
Macro Macro2445

Code:

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;/exe 1
ChangeParagraphStyle ...

[tevert]

Running as user seems to be the trick--partially. (._getactive does not work but ._create does--when running as user).

The following code runs without error--yay, partial success! But, it also does nothing. (It should delete selected text.)

Code:

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IDispatch oidApp._create("InDesign.Application")
IDispatch oidDoc=oidApp.ActiveDocument
out oidApp.Selection.Count
oidApp.Selection[0].Delete

Interestingly it does output the correct count of currently selected items, but does not delete them.

Here's working VB code:

Code:

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Dim oidApp As New InDesign.Application
  
  Dim oidDoc As InDesign.Document
  Set oidDoc = oidApp.ActiveDocument
  
  oidApp.Selection(1).Delete

[Gintaras]

Try
oidApp.Selection(1).Delete
or
oidApp.Selection.Item(1).Delete

or VBScript
Macro Macro2447

Code:

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;/exe 1
str vbs=
;Set oidApp=CreateObject("InDesign.Application")
;Set oidDoc = oidApp.ActiveDocument
;oidApp.Selection(1).Delete
VbsExec vbs

[tevert]

WOW!!

You can run VBS from QM?! I never knew that!

Changing the index to 1-based and using parentheses worked! So did executing vbscript directly.

Very cool. 8)